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As a Chicago Cubs baseball collector, I have decided to start blogging about this
subset of my collection. Yes, I have blogged about Cubs baseball cards before, but this is a little different.
I'm going to start with my 1960 cards and go all they way
to 2017. With so many years and sets, this should keep me occupied for quite some time.

I love collecting 60s baseball cards. There are good designs and bad ones, but *almost*
all fun. The problem collecting these cards are the expense and quite a few less
of them out there that are in great condition.

1960 Fleer Baseball Cards

The 1960 Fleer Set of Baseball Greats has 80 baseball cards.
Not a great looking set and not a horrible looking set either. Maybe this is why this set was not overly popular at the time.
The set showcases the great retired players from the first half of the 20th Century.
This was Fleer's first baseball card set and the start of their "retro" sets. The cards
in this set are normally a littl…

Major League Baseball wants to implement new rules for 2018 to speed up the game:

- 20-second pitch clock in all situations. [for both batters and pitchers]
- 30 second pitch clock between batters
- All Violations enforced with automatic balls and strikes will be called.
- One warning per player, per game, before penalty issued
- One mound visit from manager, coach, or player per inning.

The MLB has already tested the pitch clock and other rules above. These rules have been a part of the game at the Double-A and Triple-A levels since 2015. I'm really curious how some of the older players deal with this.

Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano and Sammy Sosa will not make it into the HoF. At least not any time soon. All three have been dropped out of future voting. So probably never.
Kerry Wood and Carlos Zambrano had great seasons with the Cubs, but the two pitchers did not impress the Baseball Writers' Association of America for other reasons... well all three candidates are too controversial.

Sammy Sosa has *ALL* the numbers, hitting 609 home runs in 18 seasons. He posted three seasons with at least 60 home runs, and won the NL Most Valuable Player Award in 1998, when he belted 66 homers and drove in a league-leading 158 runs.Unfortunately for Sosa, he will probably always be to controversial to make it. Corked bat, steroids allegations. poor teammate, etc...

In 2105 I predicted that Kerry Wood would not make it into the HoF, but discussed how good he was:

I'm itching for baseball season to start again. So here is my first Cubs post of the year and here are the players I believe will get the most playing time in 2018 for the Cubs. I'll even take it a step farther. I predict how many HR each player will hit.

C Willson Contreras 26 HRs1BAnthony Rizzo 28 HRs2BAddison Russell 16 HRsSSJavier Baez 12 HRs3BKris Bryant 32 HRsRFJason Heyward 14 HRsCFAlbert Almora Jr. 11 HRsLFKyle Schwarber 30 HRsUFIan Happ 27 HRs
We will check back and see how close I came in October. Maybe I'm over optimistic that everyone will play up to their potential.

Honestly, this still looks like a 4-years-in-a-row-playoff team. I'm a little surprised that Ian Happ is still on the team. I thought he would have been traded for a pitching ace with all this offensive potential.

Looking at that lineup, at least 4 players have HoF potential. Overall, It is still a good era to be a Cubs fan. I truely believe Heyward and Schwa…

Marvel Comics has had many superhero groups. Only two were used to high light superheros. Almost every major superhero that has been on one of these two Teams. The Avengers and The Defenders. Not including guests, I decided to map the members of both and show the superheros that have been members of both.

I stained the metal plate and then drilled holes. the stain was much darker and more red than I anticipated. I drilled holes in the top of the box and then threaded the plate on the front of the box. Now I just need to seal the surface.

In my previous blog posts I had not show the base color that I was using for the base paint. I described it as a dark charcoal, but here is the exact palette.

Since my last post, I have acquired my $5 dollars in supplies to continue my project. In the center of the box, I plan on having a metal plate with a dragon punched into it. The plate will also be bronzed. Here I have a ruler near it to show it's actual size. This is a old steel plate that came with some magnets I purchased some seven years ago.
Paige made me some possible rough dragon sketches to uses on the plate on my box. I doubt that any of these will be used though. I will know the right one when I see it.

The plate will be held on with some braided cord. I picked this up for a couple bucks. It should look good with brown and bronze.

I marked where I will drill the holes to put the braided cord through.

For a couple dollars, I also purchased some bronzed decorative corner pieces to put on the box.

After I let the glue and napkin dry, I painted the napkin with a coat of dark charcoal latex. This will be the under color that the browns and golds will be layered on (showing the dark in the cracks).

After that dried over night, this is what the top looks like. So I'm in a holding pattern till I get to the store to purchase the remainder of the items to complete this project.

The newest Thor movie, Thor: Ragnarok, had everyone pretty excited. The movie appeared to be something new for Marvel with the particular paring of super heroes. I must say I enjoyed the movie. But the movie was not a completely original Marvel work of art. In reality, back in 1973, Marvel had Valkrie, Thor, Hulk, Dr Strange, and Loki all together then. Yes, the story scenario is much different, but there are similarities. Starting Feb 1973, The Defenders vol 1 issue 4 - the super hero group, The Defenders consisted of Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner, Hulk, and Valkyrie (This was her first appearance with Defenders, issue she joins the team.)

I didn't read these early Defenders growing up. I did not start reading The Defenders 'till issue 105.
By then, these comics had become much more soap-opera like.

Valkyrie of the old comics is not the same as the Valkyrie of the movies, The spirit of the Asgardian has possessed the body of an earth woman in the early Marvel world.

Most people that know me know that I have many thousands of baseball cards. I of course started collecting them as a child when I was in grade school. My most significant collection is of the Cubs, followed by Cardinals, White Sox, and Red Sox. What many people don't know about me is that I have hundreds of comic books. I don't really consider myself a comic book collector. I just have stuff that I like ;)

My biggest collection is of the Defenders by Marvel comics. I purchased 4 a kid on a whim and loved them. I later just made sure I acquired the rest so I could have the whole story from beginning to end. I also loved Thor, Hulk, and Captain Marvel. I don't think most 'comic people' really know how big a part of the Marvel Universe had through the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Also how intertwined they were with the Avengers. Or even that the Hulk and Dr Strange were Defenders way before they ever were part of the Avengers. Some characters would even go back and …

Another great gaming site for those great DOS games you have not touched in years - - XTDOS.com
Unlike the two sites I posted about yesterday, XTDOS specializes in DOS based games. And there were some great ones.

Today I played some more old favorites like

Doom II
http://www.xtdos.com/game.php?id=295

They even have my old classic favorites like Commander Keen

http://www.xtdos.com/?s=commander+Keen

And man I was a little rusty at WarCraft II

http://www.xtdos.com/game.php?id=1619

I'm someone who literally owned all the Kings Quest games. Unfortunately, all are not represented on the site. The site only has I, II, and II:

http://www.xtdos.com/?s=Kings+Quest

Even has the DOS version of Golden Axe. This was actually the first version I owned before I had it on cartridge for the Sega Genesis, 3 Sega Geneses retro consoles, and the Xbox 360. :)